


In Dark Water

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Related, F/M, Freeruka Week 2016, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:05:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8187011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: She was in the arms of a myth amongst her people.Her mother would be aghast.





	

For a long time, it was legends. Smoke, mirrors, no answers. Maba wasn’t one to give many of them, besides. But especially not about her missing eye. So Eruka kept silent, stopped asking as all the witches learned to stop asking. She remembered, as a small girl, still needy for her mother’s hands, she had been smacked against the palms with a wooden spoon when she’d inquired.

_‘Why does she only have one eye, mama?’_

_‘You shouldn’t ask such things, ‘Ruka.’_

But, sometimes, when her mother was in a good mood, because she’d beaten one of the DWMA’s own, and she’d bring Eruka home a new scarf from their bones, she’d sit with a cup of tea and whisper stories that Eruka would sleep to.

_‘Once upon a time, there was a werewolf…’_

Of course, back then, Eruka had believed that it was all tales. Stories her mother would say, fantastical as they were, to keep her quiet. Because the spoon did its job, and so did the chiding, and so did the harsh looks. And the stories, well, those were to keep her placated.

Eruka knew (thought?) they were all just wisps: fiction, and nothing more.

And, when her mother passed, Eruka sold all her things. She sold the cauldron that her mother used to make brew out of, and she sold the lamps. She sold the scarves from the bodies of the dead weapons and Meisters her mother had the good fortune and power to kill. She forgot it all. She forgot the tales of the WolfMan.

Until, of course, she was asked to come for him.

* * *

She asked him, first, when the lunatic was brought in and Medusa paraded around in a child’s body and he laughed and laughed and laughed. Eruka couldn’t stand it. There was something grating, cold about it. The Franken Stein she’d heard stories of was a force of a man. Watching him crawl about Medusa’s lair like a child was.  . .off-putting in the worst way. She almost wished he’d find enough of himself to end the entire miserably masquerade.

But, of course, she was too much of a damn coward to die, she thought angrily. Too scared to face down Medusa. Too scared to help Mizune. Too scared to do anything but follow directions like a good little witchling.

Eruka scoffed. Had she more courage, she’d have thrown the tray of food that the weirdo professor didn’t even touch. But she couldn’t. She had to bring it back to Medusa and whimper when the other witch made a snide, threatening comment. Hell, it wasn’t even Eruka’s decision to get the tray: it was only when Medusa was bothered by the smell of it all that she’d commanded Eruka to get the several days old and clearly rotting nastiness and-

And, damn it all, she almost dropped all of it all over herself when Free popped up from behind her shoulder, asking ‘What are you doing?’ right into her ear before rearing himself around before her.

“Maba help me, Free, what the fuc-“

Free’s nose wrinkled. “That smells awful-“

“That’s why I was throwing it-“

“What is it?”

Eruka breathed in deep through her nose, finding the patience inside of herself. “Does it even matter? Ugh, here, take it,” she said, thrusting it into Free’s hands. He seemed to examine it for a moment before he went to take a bite, but Eruka’s sharp look deterred him.

At least, for the time being.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you to think before you act?” Eruka asked, falling back against the wall and closing her eyes, her tone too harsh.

The silence seemed to drip in the halls. “What’s wrong?” Free asked, and now his voice was lower. She shuddered, slightly, bringing her arms around herself and feeling her back slide against the wall.

“What isn’t?” she asked in return, her shoulders trembling.

When she opened her eyes, Free was before her, shrugging. “Better than my last quarters.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the only one. Then again, you probably deserved that, stealing Maba’s eye…” Eruka said, looking at him critically as he regarded the food before him once again. He didn’t even seem fazed by it all. Then again, they’d had more frank discussions in the past. About her depression, her fear, her worry of the future.

But never that eye. That eye that she was always so curious about. Legends. Mirrors. Smoke.

“…why’d you do it, anyway?” she finally blurted out, heart thudding hard in her chest.

When Free looked back at her, his eyes looked bottomless. And she was faced with the fact that this man was truly immortal. What had he witnessed, with that eye? What had he endured? And why why why? For what gain? For what powerful, interesting purpose? What secrets did he hide beneath his skin-

“I felt like it,” he replied simply, and Eruka sputtered, all her puffed up ideas turned to ash before her.

Figures. Of course he would commit such a horrendous crime because of a stupid reason like that. Eruka scoffed and then made a disgusted sound when Free stuffed his face with some of the ground meat on the tray.

“Oh, EW! Free, gross! That’s-“ she made a retching sound, and Free just grinned and grinned and grinned.

* * *

It was years before she questioned any of it, again. Because Free had never had any mystery to him. So she thought. Free was big, wide smiles, and ‘Eruka!!’s, and sloppy, slobbery kisses to her cheeks, and too much cuddling, and fleas, sometimes, and goodness and sharp teeth and a hell of an appetite. She could read him like a book.

She should know better than to assume things of men made legends. She’d learned a different side to everyone who had a history during her stint brushing too damn close to Death and death. She wasn’t going to relive it.

If there was anything she had on her side, it was luck. Coming out of the feud between Witches and DWMA unscathed after having slighted both sides of the war was a miracle in of itself, one she partially attributed to hopping on Free’s shoulders and getting the fuck out while getting the fuck out was good.

Now, with tentative, currently intact peace, she has too much time to think. She always had. But when she was a girl, that time was spent thinking about which DWMA student would come to slaughter her for the magic frothing in her bones. And then, it was about whether Medusa would kill her, simply for fun. And then if she would die in a DWMA prison.

Eruka stretched out across her green sheets, trying to elbow space for herself in Free’s large, comforting arms, and he made an almost offended sound as he had to shift.

“Yeah, yeah. We’re getting a bigger bed, soon, you big baby,” she said, curling in close, and Free snorted before he nuzzled at her hair, taking a deep inhale.

“You smell nice.”

“I know. I use soap,” she teased. And Free whined at the subtle dig she’d made over the last time he’d had fleas. Laughing, she looked up, bringing her hand to his jaw to feel the stubble there with the pad of her thumb, and she regarded his face intently.

Now, it wasn’t about survival. Now, it was about enjoying herself.

And, really, who could blame her in finding enjoyment with Free? As she looked at him, she smiled at the fact that being with him was all old, familiar motions. They’d been by each other for too long. Tied by war and together by choice. She’d looked at his face more times than she could ever count. Slowly, her fingertips came over his cheekbones. She looked over his lips, well-kissed, his nose and his-

his eye.

She hadn’t dwelled on that for too long, it seemed. And the curiosity bubbled in her.

“Free?” she asked, looking at the tattoo he had in place of his eyebrow.

“Hmmm?” he asked.

“…did you really just steal Maba’s eye because you just. . .felt like it?”

He looked at her for a long time, this man who had seen her at her most vulnerable. This man who was savage and wild, and had committed the ultimate sins against her people.

But, then again, so had she.

Free’s grin, then, had something secret, and dangerous to it. But she felt no fear. Of all the things she was terrified of, Free could never be one of them.

“Isn’t that why anyone does anything?” he asked.

“Oh, come on! There has to be some reason! A backstory? A plot?” she asked, and she nudged at him with her ankle. She was in the arms of a myth amongst her people.

Her mother would be aghast.

“Does it matter, now?” he asked, and she paused. Since she was a girl, she had wondered about him. About the who, the why, the consequences. What had he endured that he could still come out with a grin? What had he experienced?

But she knew the who. She knew the Free who carried her on his shoulder from danger. She knew the Free who had kissed her as though she was the most important thing he’d ever held. She knew the Free who breathed hard in her ear, and dragged his hands over her hips and asked if she was okay.

In a lot of ways, that’s all she wanted to know. Need to know. Not the Free of mysteries and legends, the one locked in a prison cell, carrying the fragment of Maba’s body within his skull.

So she scoffed, pushed at him with her ankle, again, and poked his cheek. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said, and Free grinned, curling in against her.

Feeling him beside her, she shook her head fondly, closing her eyes. Did it matter, now? Not really. They all had their dark waters they’d rather not wade through. What did it matter to her what the mythos was?

Besides, she realized: now, wasn’t she a woman made legend, too?


End file.
